Welcome to our show, Google – now get this up ye!
If this report in The Times is to believed, 12 operators will announce tomorrow that they are fighting back at increasing fragmentation in the mobile applications development market by…launching another application platform.
Interestingly,Vodafone is not on the list of The Times’ companies. Vodafone, Softbank, China Mobile and Verizon are all publicly committed to JIL- an app environment that the oeprators say will offer developers unified access to the combined 1 billion subscribers under their management.
If the report is correct, then the announcement looks set to be made on Monday 15th at the GSMA’s press conference – at least, that would make the most sense. Luckily, we will have a man there, ready and waiting.
The GSMA’s Michael O’Hara told Mobile Europe in a pre-brief for the event that applications would be a hot area for the Associations membership – and that defragmentation is one aspect the operators would like to push.
Google’s Eric Schmidt is headlining the main stage – and he may be wondering if he has in fact stepped into the lions’ den. After all, if mobile operators want an open app environment that allows them to compete with Apple – there’s an obvious contender. The only issue is, of course, for all the talk of partnership, most operators are still more comfortable with something they themselves control – or have at least led the development of.
There are half a dozen app platform providers exhibiting at the MWC’s App Planet. So another platform to certify, test and port to, even one backed by a dozen operators, further increase complexity, at least in the short term.